a blog for decent people to learn and discuss the real news and promote a better world

media

I recently read up a little on the actor Ted Danson, whose work (and often snarky roles) I have always liked. Not too surprisingly, I came across a report of his political activism, and – again not too surprisingly – it followed the normal pattern of his generation of celebrities. On one hand, he is an environmentalist, which goes to his credit. On the other hand, though, he is a habitual supporter of the Democratic Party and its corrupt leadership which took over and warped this party — a party which had been a people’s party in his youth, but which has since become a party for the upper 10%, unnoticed by people like himself. Continue reading →

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So, our country was hit by yet another hundred-year hurricane, the third in just twelve years, and – yet – when the rare beast of an honest reporter mentioned climate change in connection, he was quickly cut off by the corporate controllers on his TV network. (watch the clip below if you haven’t seen it, yet)

(Note: if the video linked above gets deleted, you may search the Internet for the title: “MSNBC Cuts Off Reporter Telling Truth About Floods & Oil”)

Watching this, it occurred to me, that in our world, and my own life, there exist grave problems and a little solution which are interconnected: Continue reading →

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So much for the myth propagated by our corporate media that the so-called rebels are democracy loving good guys and Assad the awful dictatorial bad guy. As usual, our government fights to destroy all chance of democracy and justice in foreign lands (for corporate profits on cheap oil imports and lucrative arms sales) and pretends to do the opposite.Read what Syrians have to say about it.

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A lot of good people don’t like Debbie “the Sane Progressive” Lusignan since she takes no prisoners and yells a lot. Still, while her completely uncompromising stance dismisses even personalities like Bernie Sanders as an establishment sell-out (after originally supporting him before he made some – at least partially questionable – compromising moves), her ability to sniff out flaws and potential problems in political strategies and personalities strikes me as unmatched. And while a canary’s chirping may get on your nerves, that chirping bird is still tremendously valuable, since – if you wait to notice dangerous coal mine gases yourself – it’s usually going to be too late.

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That’s right. This isn’t 18th century news from King George’s American colonies. I didn’t just step out of a time machine. This is the news now! In at least ten states free speech, at least in the form of public protests, has already been criminalized and outlawed (perhaps 20 by now, as such people-silencing legislation keeps getting introduced all over the country (but thankfully sometimes fails)). With this flurry of attacks, I find exact numbers of the current state hard to come by in these highly turbulent times where this topic often doesn’t get the attention it should, not even on the alternative media. This issue is far too important not to keep our eyes open, though. Here is an article someone wrote with many links in it to references, if you wish to dig a little deeper: Crackdown in the States. I don’t know its author, Chip Gibbons, enough to vouch for him, but the many links in his article suggest credibility to me.

In addition, here is a telling, short TED Talk:

(Note: if the video linked above gets deleted, you may search the Internet for the title: “Will Potter: The shocking move to criminalize nonviolent protest”)

Slightly rephrasing Bill Moyers: Our political and economic/financial institutions and mass media have come to be without a soul. We walk a world in which the lust for private power and wealth corrupts everything and sucks away real life.

(Note: if the video linked above gets deleted, you may search the Internet for the title: “Politics in the Age of Casino Capitalism”)

Corporate Con-Job at the FCC: Anything to Censor the Internet

(Note: if the video linked above gets deleted, you may search the Internet for the title: “FCC’s Comment Fraud Problem WAY Worse Than Anyone Imagined“)

Frederick Townsend Martin (one of the robber barons of our 1st Guilded Age: “… we are the rich. We own America; we got it, God knows how; but we intend to keep it…” Ughhh! The practice and intent clearly is the same in our current 2nd Guilded Age, including the abject indifference and cruelty.

(Note: if the video linked above gets deleted, you may search the Internet for the title: “The New Robber Barons“)

Bill Moyers alerted us back in 2014, when few of us were paying attention, to Obama and Congress heinously passing a bill permitting Wall Street to resume its predatory practices (which only a few years earlier had given us the Mortgage Crisis and Great Recession) and sticking us, the taxpayers, with the bill when their gambles will fail again — all done as investment return for half a billion dollars poured into the midterm elections by these “financial interests.” And, unsurprisingly, the bill was written by a corporate think tank and adopted practically verbatim by our congress cheats, the way business is done in our “representative” legislature these days.

I hope everybody is coming to understand that corruption in our highest political offices did not start with Trump. It has been going on for a long time (long before Obama, too) and merely keeps gobbling up our country and ruining our lives contrary to Trump’s promise to “drain the swamp,” Obama’s promise of hope, and whatever false promises their predecessors (the Bushes, Bill Clinton, Richard Nixon and all those false cheats in Congress, as well as many state governments and city councils, made).

We are not fated to live this way. It isn’t fate. It’s a rigged system which we can change in a heartbeat when we resolve to do so and join forces to do it.

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This weekend, enjoy politically relevant videos across a wide spectrum of issues: media mendacity, Syria, U.S. poverty, automation and lay-offs , the next economic crash, repression of dissent, government spending for a new New Deal, and Universal Basic Income.

1. Media Lies and Syria

Beware the corporate media! Beware, beware, beware! If you use outfits like CNN, MSNBC, or Fox News as your only source of information, you will be mislead again and again. Sometimes they will let a bit of real news slip through; but you can only tell real news from fake news if you do some vetting of sources. One way is to check out multiple information sources from different places on the political spectrum – alternative media especially (to get away from vested corporate interests) – and then compare the disagreeing reports to find commonalities. Another way is to use your brain to take into account how these sources make their money, then put two and two together, and you will know what’s really going on. You know that you can’t trust a used cars salesman when he praises a car standing on his lot; but he may be quite honest talking about the weather or the problems his child has in school. Makes sense, right? — I work hard to bring you the real news, as well as original thoughts and ideas; so you would do well to follow my posts and help me reach more people (or even help me become financed, for example by a small donation from you, or you buying an online course from me).

One topic the corporate media are compulsive liars about is our eternal warfare around the globe. So, here is some rarely heard news about Syria:

(Note: if the video linked above gets deleted, you may search the Internet for the title: “Max Blumenthal on How the Media Covers Syria”)

Quote: “The progressive media’s job is to challenge [the establishment media] narrative, but in the Trump era this is not really happening.” The great risk, at this time, is that alternative media join the corporate media in their distractive anti-Trump mania, a convenient trick for our corporate media and politicians not to report on corporate crimes or truly transformative political opportunities. Merely resisting won’t move us forward. We must do more to fight the establishment and take our country back from the robber billionaires.

2. American Poverty

Meet the Poor Country USA (over half the U.S. lives in or near poverty (such as working for less than a living wage)). See and hear from their reality, if you don’t experience it yourself every day, or know you are not alone if you do:

(Note: if the video linked above gets deleted, you may search the Internet for the title: “America Is The Poorest First World Country Linh Dinh”)

If you want to know how we got to this place, I write about this regularly. In fact, if you haven’t read it already, I wrote a succinct summary yesterday:How the Bandits Took Over

3. Automation and Lay-offs

McDonald’s just used its record stock prices to fire 2,500 of its workers. Conclusion: Technology either improves the profits of plutocrats or the lives of workers. Plutocrats fire workers replaced by machines to improve their profits. In contrast, workers owning their companies and making the decisions would improve their lives and their communities:

(Note: if the video linked above gets deleted, you may search the Internet for the title: “McDonald’s, Capitalism, and Unemployment”)

4. The Next Economic Crash

The next economic crash is about to hit:

(Note: if the video linked above gets deleted, you may search the Internet for the title: “Economist Dr. Richard Wolff – The Lottery Economy”)

5. Repression Of Dissent

Brutal repression of dissent is quickly growing in our country. It will soon be the dark future for all of us if we don’t fight back now when it is still only hitting some of us:

(Note: if the video linked above gets deleted, you may search the Internet for the title: “[#68] A U.S. Political Prisoner Is Finally Released & CNN Cover Up”)

6. Government Spending for a New New Deal

The below is probably the best video by Steve Grumbine that I have seen so far. This one is really good — full of vital truth. Gist: Watch your language! Most Americans need and want the same things, but the way we talk, pushing the party-line-division buttons, we tune each other out. Talk real issues, not slogans, party lines, or candidates:

(Note: if the video linked above gets deleted, you may search the Internet for the title: “Crossing political boundaries”)

Gist continued: Federal spending is an investment which can have taxes collected afterwards to balance out the economy. You don’t need to fight drawn-out political trench wars to free up tax dollars first, and you don’t need to burden most working people with higher taxes, to give us things like Medicare for All. All we really need, is a broad coalition of voters (across party lines) to get us a new New Deal. Taxes don’t exactly pay for any of these, the government does. The federal government can print all the money it needs (or create it with a click on a computer, actually). Taxation is only the re-taking of money from the economy lest we get inflation if the growth in money supply exceeds the growth of the economy. This re-taking is best done in places where the money uselessly accumulates (the billionaires).

Now, Steve Grumbine promotes a federal job guarantee but seems to oppose a universal basic income. Personally, I think that combining the two of them would give people a greater amount of flexibility. The thing not to overlook, after all, is that government – even one that is accountable to the voters (as our American government definitely is NOT and has not been for decades!) – is never perfect. One-size-fits-all measures always do wrong by some people. Hence, in my opinion, having an unconditional universal basic income as a financial safety buffer for all those for whom a federal job guarantee might not work, is highly recommendable. For example, if a federal job guarantee, for whatever reason, would exclude taking care of one’s children or one’s elderly (say, because their might be a worry about nepotism or unqualified care), then people able to rely on an unconditional basic income could still make the choice to care for their relatives, making for more individual liberty and a better, more caring society. Liberty and choice is what government should guarantee us, just like our founders demanded.

7. Universal Basic Income: A Comedian Talking Sense that Escapes Most Serious People

(Note: if the video linked above gets deleted, you may search the Internet for the title: “Breaking The Stigma Towards Universal Basic Income Can Better Society!”)

Don’t forget to support alternative media and citizen journalism.Help usany way you can(share, comment, write, urge others to share, find us bigger outlets, donate, or buy an online course from us).

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Cable companies want to get rid of net neutrality. Without it, sites like this one could be censored, slowed down, or forced to charge fees (and thus priced out of the alternative media landscape). We can stop these evil corporations and keep the Internet open (we’ve done it before) if we all contact Congress and the FCC, but we only have a few days left. ClickHEREto send off your protest letter or to learn more.

And here are instructions for leaving a comment on the FCC’s on website. (I heard paid trolls filled the site with kill-net-neutrality demands, but I can’t confirm it (not enough time).)

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I. Our Ability to Inform and Organize: Net Neutrality

Our oligarchs want to return to the time where we only had their corporate media to get “information” from and no efficient way to organize via the Internet. Sure, officially, the war on net neutrality is only about money. However, the key here is this: Once Internet providers can separate data streams for different pricing, they can also separate them for blocking political activism and alternative media. If you ask me, that’s the real reason our corrupt corporate politicians are so eager to comply with the industry giants’ call for differently priced lanes on the Internet.

It’s very clear that Trump-appointed new FCC Chair (and former Verizon lawyer) Ajit Pai – do I dare to think of him as a swamp creature? – wants to undo the net neutrality rules many of us fought so hard for in 2015.

Demand Progress is organizing a fight to keep net neutrality intact. They write:

“Net neutrality is the principle that the internet should be an open platform where anyone can build a website, open a small business, and create a community. It’s the idea that no matter how you use the net for your job, your school, or keeping in touch with friends and family, you get treated the same online.”

“Americans in every corner of the country support net neutrality—and that’s why we now have rules that stop cable companies like Comcast and Verizon from throttling or slowing down sites—or determining what you can see or post online.”

“We’re taking a page from Bernie’s book. We’re working with senior organizing staffers from Bernie’s campaign on a bold new plan: build teams of people in key states and congressional districts who’ll be ready to recruit an even larger cadre to swarm district offices, pack town halls, and stage protests outside Verizon and AT&T storefronts.”

The “Better Care Reconciliation Act of 2017” would be better called Wealthcare than Trumpcare, caring exclusively about the wealth of the already wealthiest handful of money aristocrats on Earth while leaving many of the rest of us to die, even as doctors and nurses, treatments, and medications are on standby, waiting to be PAID before they help – but not getting paid and therefore not helping – in our harebrained health-for-profit system.

The National Committee to Preserve Social Security & Medicare, an advocacy group which has been fighting to protect Social Security and Medicare since 1982, says it is working around the clock to defeat the Senate’s disastrous Trumpcare bill — the bill which so sanctimoniously will gut Medicaid, weaken Medicare, dramatically increase health care costs for millions of older Americans (like five times!!!) and add 22 million MORE Americans to those who have to subsist without any health insurance (with the resulting early deaths already mentioned).